Your deck has seen better days. Pressure-treated boards give out following complete exposure to repeated cycles of precipitation and beams. The endings of deck planks become soft and frayed, the surfaces appear splintered, and you may observe bows and warping in support joists. These signs will inform you time has came.

The Green, No-Cost Option

If you wish to avoid costs aside from a small supplies and your time, you can deconstruct instead of demolish your deck. This involves with a utility bar, a drill and bit set, and a nail and hammer puller, all while wearing gloves. You will reverse the sequence of your deck assembly. This indicates that you pull the balusters, the railings along with the base rails first. If they are nailed together use a crowbar, if they’re screwed 21, or undo the screws with a drill. Eliminate screws as you move and pull on nails, and shed them. Lay pieces of wood together. Continue by getting rid of the deck planks and steps, and stacking them. End by disassembling the beams, joists and support articles.

Selling Your Salvaged Lumber

You can list a list of your salvaged lumber on the internet, in lots. Buyers may jump in your ideas to utilize the deck planks for garden structures where cosmetics aren’t a problem, or even for deer stands or greenhouse walls. Support joists will be in need for reuse as structural elements such as decks. Do-it-yourselfers will haul your stuff that are salvaged off, obviating the necessity. You find a offer or can offer boards at roughly 50 percent of the value new. Make it obvious to buyers the salvage material has irregularities but is nail-free. In this manner, you may make a bit of cash.

Donating Materials

You may also have the ability to donate materials that are clean to a centre specializing in construction materials that are used, if your area has one, and also have a tax deduction. A survey reported in”Environmental Impacts of Treated Wood” discovered that 15 percent of builders were able to salvage timber from multi-colored decks.

Elements of a Standard Demo

You can start a spreadsheet and create a quote fine-tuned to your particular area, if you would like to hire someone to perform a demo. You’ll require line things for your demolition permit, which you may need for a salvage demo; $50 as of spring 2014 may run approximately. You want to pay your laborers, who is hired usually for about $24 a hour, in metropolitan areas that are mid sized. A skip fee depends upon the size of the deck you’re demolishing. In the event that your home is in a major city A dumpster, by way of instance, may cost approximately $345 to $430. Or in case you’ve got a deck, you may have the ability to chop the deck surface into panels a pickup truck bed’s size and load them into the truck for excursions to the dump.

Calling in a Company

You can also hire a demolition company that will take care of everything for you. Look for references that are great to assure that you’re working with a decent company that will clean and avoid damaging the region. If you are in a area which has roof decks such as San Francisco, Baltimore, New York or Philadelphia, you can expect additional costs to lower demolished or salvaged stuff to salvage truck or a ground-level dumpster. Expect laborer hours to carry the materials by your property, being careful with your own walls, or even reduce them via rope to floor level.

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Where you most appreciate the beauty of plants, think about an area in your garden. Now imagine bringing that favorite piece of your garden inside as a bouquet. You may be amazed to find that the mixtures composed of many of your favorite flowering shrubs, perennials, vines and even trees can be employed to make a beautiful tabletop bouquet — and also inspire the next year’s plantings.

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Creating a bouquet is not difficult. In fact, it can be as easy as filling a vase with the stalks from a single flowering tree. Or try pairing flowering shrubs with vines and perennials. Whether your bouquet is made of a type of plant or several, there are possibilities.

The purple blooms of Texas ranger (Leucophyllum frutescens)make a great pairing with the orange blossoms of orange jubilee (Tecoma x ‘Orange Jubilee’).

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Selecting the Right Plants

you might be amazed to find that many of the existing flowering shrubs, perennials, vines and trees in your garden are acceptable for producing a backyard fragrance.

Revealed: Honeysuckle

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Your garden may be filled with flowering plants, but how do you know whether they’ll hold up in a bouquet without wilting immediately?

The easiest way to learn whether a plant can be utilised in a fragrance would be to cut a stem or two, place them in water and see how they consume. When the flowers wilt or droop straight away, then they won’t make a fantastic bouquet. Ideally they’ll last at least 24 hours.

The red blossoms of Jupiter’s beard (Centranthus ruber)form the perfect background for its purple blossoms of chives (Allium schoenoprasum), each of which can be utilised to make a bouquet.

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Garden bouquets typically don’t last so long as people purchased from a florist, but they’re a creative and unique manifestation of your garden.

Here a small bouquet includes flowering annuals violas and alyssum, paired with the pale pink blossoms of pink bower vine (Pandorea jasminoides).

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Don’t limit yourself to flowering plants. Plants with vibrant foliage or interesting textures and shapes can make fantastic additions to your garden bouquet.

Language ivy (Hedera helix)looks fantastic when inserted into a floral bouquet, since it will drape down the sides of the vase. The large leaves of hosta can be utilised to make a gorgeous backdrop for flowering plants.

As the seasons change, so will your garden bouquets, as distinct plants peak on your garden. When the weather starts to cool and the flowers start to fade, you can create a bouquet without blossoms, using seed pods out of your favorite trees instead. Seed pods from trees such as jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), screwbean acacia (Prosopis pubescens), sweet chewing (Liquidambar styraciflua)and tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera)can be utilised to make a uniquely lovely and seasonal bouquet.

Revealed: Variegated English ivy

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Organizing Your Garden Bouquet

Look to the garden. You do not need to become a floral designer to figure out how to arrange flowers. For inspiration about what plants to use in your aroma, look at the way the plants are arranged on your garden. Note which plants look great together and try to mirror the identical arrangement in a bouquet.

A simple way to get started is to use a combination of 3 plants: a more slender flowering plant, such as a tree, paired with a medium-height perennial and a low-growing floor cover.

Set the taller branches or stalks toward the trunk or center of your bouquet and add the remaining plants in order of height, ending with all the shortest plant, just like from the landscape.

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Use the color wheel. Look to the garden for notions about which colours look great together. With a color wheel can also help you figure out which colors look great when combined. Group trendy colors, like pink, purple and white, for a beautiful bouquet. Or, if you want darker colours, use plants with red, orange or yellow blossoms. For a dramatic color contrast, pair flowering plants with trendy colours with those who have warm colours.

In the bouquet shown here, the contrasting colours of purple trailing lantana (Lantana montevidensis), yellowish Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata)and yellow-orange Cascalote shrub (Caesalpinia cacalaco) blossoms make an attractive mix.

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Bouquets created from the garden tend to be unstructured and loose, appealing in their simplicity.

The pink and white blossoms of globe mallow(Sphaeralcea ambigua) form the perfect background for the lavender blossoms of Goodding’s verbena (Glandularia gooddingii)in front here.

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

A single type of flower can make a wonderful arrangement. Bouquets can be large or small depending on which plants and containers you use, by a large vase filled with azaleas to a small glass bottle with a lot of violas.

Revealed: Azaleas

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

Planting Your Own Bouquet Garden

What if you do not have a garden filled with flowering plants acceptable for a bouquet? Go ahead and plant your own bouquet garden.

Here are some popular flowering plants which grow in a variety of climates and will enhance your outdoor garden in addition to beautify your home if made into bouquets:
AzaleaBleeding heartBuddleiaClematisConeflowerCoreopsisCrape myrtleForsythiaHoneysuckleLantanaLavenderPincushion flowerRhododendronRudbeckiaSalvia spTrumpet vineOf course, these are simply a couple of plants which can be brought indoors to make garden bouquets. Read the blossoms section for more ideas.

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting

When deciding which plants to improve your bouquet garden, then pick the ones that will have overlapping bloom periods so you can make bouquets throughout most of the year. Incorporate a mixture of flowering shrubs, perennials and vines. Soon you will have not just a gorgeous garden outside, but one which will allow you to attract the beauty of the garden inside.

More: How to Make Beautifully Untamed Floral Arrangements

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A beam is a very long, horizontal structural piece that transports and supports weight above it, namely a squared piece of timber or engineered timber or a metal girder.

Sutton Suzuki Architects

The beams of this room have mortise holes where other beams connected with tenons.

Birdseye Design

Steel may rust as quickly as overnight. A primer was applied to those steel beams, giving them their blackened look.

Equinox Architecture Inc. – Jim Gelfat

This wall opening is created by steel girders. The posts are perpendicular and the beam is horizontal.

Quezada Architecture

Two steel beams support the roof material of this covered walkway.

Designs Northwest Architects, dan Nelson

Glulam, or glue-laminated, beams are suprisingly more powerful than a solid piece of timber.

Read more beam photographs

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Every weekday morning starts exactly the same for me. Wake up, shower, drive kids to college … test messages. My phone starts to ring, buzz and tweet on the driveway to college. My kids just chat, sing and laugh to the radio, dismissing the various alarms coming from my phone. I usually sneek a peek at each red light and the 1 train stop on our route.

Recently I’ve been wondering about how we all communicate in our instant world of iPhones and iPads. Some frequent texts I get during the day are quick notes, such as “c u @ 12” or even “thx 4 ur hlp.” I’m still attempting to master texting language. I have to admit it seems strange for me to spell in this format, though I recognize it saves time. Being a man who specializes in details for a living, I find brevity difficult.

Can you recall the last time you received a handwritten note from a friend? Do you recall the colour of the ink or the smell of this stationery? Handwritten letters are those that actually stick in my mind, and they’re a dying art form.

The distances below look like perfect places to pause and write a handwritten note to your friend or relative — no wires, no Wi-Fi, no abbreviations. Have a look and be inspired to dig out that stationery and fancy pencil, and write to someone you care about. You will make a lasting, good impression.

Kathleen Burke Design

Using a writing desk for a bedside table makes great use of space in this soft and tranquil bedroom. This gorgeous traditional desk is the perfect size to maintain the basics: lamp, clock and blossoms. Stationery and pens could be held in the petite drawers.

J. Hirsch Interior Design, LLC

A traditional wall hanging highlights a beautiful writing desk perfectly placed in the area’s recessed area. The gorgeous floral lamp provides the lighting you’d need for writing letters.

Michael Abrams Limited

This beautiful writing desk in a private corner doubles as a vanity. Together with the silk and glass-bead wall coverings, who wouldn’t be inspired to sit and compose a letter to an old friend?

Cravotta Interiors

Pens, stationery and stamps can all be tucked away in the abundant drawers of a secretary in this way.

With writing tools neatly kept away, the main doors can stay open for a complete perspective of this piece’s detailed craftsmanship.

Don Ziebell

Try to find a quiet, private corner on your home where small pieces such as this desk could be placed, lit with a nearby lamp.

Brian Dittmar Design, Inc..

This modern secretary at a calming blue home office is perfect for some rapid paperwork and then a relaxed moment to compose a handwritten note.

Charmean Neithart Interiors

Float a desk at a master bedroom to get somewhere to compose letters while gazing on a courtyard.

Vendome Press

Place a desk facing windows to make the most of a perspective. Bonus: Together with the intention of only writing letters, there are no messy wires to handle.

Lucy Interior Design

With no cords in the way, you can highlight fantastic details, such as the legs of the vintage sawhorse table.

Kristen Rivoli Interior Design

Now that is blue! This daring blue paint produces a fantastic background for this midcentury writing desk. Notice the scale of the vintage piece; its petite size makes it a fantastic selection for a bedroom.

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Pine needle scale insects feed on the sap from the needles. Pine trees (Pinus spp.) , which grow in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 9, depending on the variety, are mainly susceptible to the scale insect Chionaspis pinifoliae. A large population can weaken a pine, but even small infestations can affect the health and appearance of this tree.

What to Look For

Egg-laying feminine scales develop a white armor coating and measure about 3 mm long, while the males are slightly smaller. After they settle down to feed and lay eggs in their adult form, they no longer move. Young mounts hatch from yellow eggs twice annually in mid-spring and midsummer. They move through this early phase and are bright red in colour, so that they are sometimes referred to as reddish spiders. The protective wax armor adults makes treatment difficult, but you can destroy the unarmored red spiders in case you catch them right after hatching.

A Speedy Trim

Light pruning can control minor pine scale coverings. Disinfect pruning shears or a pruning saw by wiping with rubbing alcohol after each cut so you don’t propagate the insects to wood. Only cut badly infested branches back to your nearest healthy wood, or remove the entire branch back to its foundation. Destroy the clippings after ripped so that the insects do not infest another tree.

Ant Control

A high population of ants around or on a pine tree can raise the population of scale insects, since the ants care for those scales so that they could crop the sticky honeydew the scales secrete. Ant bait setup around the tree will eventually kill the ants, but keeping them off the tree and off in the scales is necessary in the brief term. Wrap the pine trunk with a 6-inch broad piece of tree wrap, pushing the wrap to any crevices on the bark. Cover the wrap with a thin coat of a sticky material made for ants that are crocheted. The ants can’t cross the material to make it to the scales above. Replace the wrap every year and remove it promptly if it begins to constrict the trunk.

Pesticide Pointers

Horticultural oils and soaps have limited effectiveness since the armor on the scales helps shield them. Large pine trees can also be hard to spray, so well timed soap and oil sprays work best on smaller landscape pines. Apply an oil and soap insecticide once the crawlers are going. You can track for spiders by wrap double-sided tape around infested divisions, and then tracking the tape daily with a magnifying glass before the tape begins trapping the insects. Set a hose-end sprayer to employ 1.5 ounces of 22.5 percent carbaryl pesticide per 1 gallon of water, and then completely coat the pine with the spray. Pesticides are best implemented on dry days, and they may need reapplication at midsummer throughout the second crawler stage. Wear gloves and skin and eye protection when using a pesticide.

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I looking at upholstery particulars. I make and purchase seats, sofas and headboards frequently and have studied various tucks, seams and welts for years. Particular details really do specify a appearance of a chair, much like a necklace or scarf may change the vibe of an outfit.

Learn upholstery lingo and consider some new details for your next upholstery job. Here are some of my favorites and the attitudes they communicate.

J. Hirsch Interior Design, LLC

Among my favorite choices for a chair is that a dressmaker’s cut, occasionally referred to as a drop skirt. It creates a casual but tailored vibe. This detail works great with cotton and linen. Notice the contrasting band at the underside edge. Pretty!

Annette Tatum

An English arm using a T-seat cushion is just another one of my favorite upholstery particulars. This appearance is elegant yet also casual. The fit is precise and shows a pattern nicely.

Comfort Works Custom Slipcovers

A pleated slipcover is a fantastic alternative for chairs and sofas. Slipcovers are practical and also a fantastic choice for homes with kids or pets, but occasionally they may look cluttered and ill fitting. The pleat provides just a subtle detail so the slipcover looks as though it fits properly.

Tobi Fairley Interior Design

A box cushion is a nice choice for bench or banquette seating. A box cushion is made with a foam core for a nice squared-off shape. Sometimes construction consists of a foam core using a downward wrap. The advantages here are finished with a little self-welt.

Cecilie Starin Design Inc..

This gorgeous chair has a lot going on. The details are extremely subtle but visually effective. The chair has a contrasting face on the chair cushion. Moreover, the chair and back have a dual welt for extra elegance. Gorgeous!

Sarah St. Amand Interior Design, Inc..

Contrasting fabrics are a excellent detail for seats. Try out a contrasting fabric on the inner back of a chair, just like with this handsome armchair. Create interest with materials that relate to one another in colour or pattern.

Paula Grace Designs, Inc..

Try out placing stripes rather than vertically. This makes a space feel a bit more updated and modern. Notice that the welt with this chair was cut on the bias, which means the stripe was placed with a soft slant.

Abbe Fenimore Studio Ten 25

Nailheads pump up the detail on the back of your sofa. If you have a sofa set away from the walls in an area, look at dressing up the back. The simple nailhead detail here adds a modern touch to the squared-off lines.

Jamie Herzlinger

Diamond tufting is a detail to your chair, sofa or headboard that creates extra cushion on tight-back upholstery. A tight spine does not have as much “cush” as a loose back, so the diamond tufting constitutes that. It tends to feel modern in a strong and more conventional in a pattern.

Cecilie Starin Design Inc..

A tufted, rolled arm is unmistakably traditional. This is occasionally referred to as a chesterfield fashion; the tufting this is daring and overscaled.

Bauhaus Custom Homes

Channel tufting is a fun detail that may add vintage appeal or modern flair to any type of chairs. Based on what it is paired with, this detail may evoke ’20s a midcentury modern vibe. It feels nice and pleasant, too, and really is a fantastic choice for men and women that like symmetry.

More: 3 Extreme Chair Makeovers

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When my husband and I bought our Dallas ranch house, we also became the owners of a dining set the prior owners had left behind. It was not our personality, but it was comfy, and as my father says, “Love the one you’re with.” After residing with the hand-me-down dining set for three decades, I was prepared for a budget-friendly update. Here is the way I took my dining seats from blah to bold one weekend.

Sarah Greenman

Time: 4 hours and drying period
Skill level: Moderate
Price: $65, even if you presently have a basic gun and screwdriver

Our dining room walls are painted a charcoal gray called Cracked Pepper from Behr, and we all understood reddish could pop from the dark walls.

Sarah Greenman

BEFORE: This is the first blue brocade upholstery.

Sarah Greenman

Tools and materials required:
Staple gun
3/8-inch staplesScrewdriver or drill
Spray can of B-I-N Shellac-Base Primer (I used two cans for four seats)
Spray paint in your preferred color. (I used two cans of glossy Apple Red from Rust-Oleum to refinish four seats)Spray can of polyurethane clear gloss topcoatSeat cushion materials:Box of tea to stain upholstery fabric (I used 10 bags of Earl Grey)
about 1/2 lawn fabric of your choice each cushion, depending on seat dimensions
Plastic sink, sink or soaking bathtub

Sarah Greenman

Repainting the Chair Frame

1. Using your own screwdriver or drill, remove the screws from your chair cushions and place them apart.

Sarah Greenman

2. Take the chair frames out for painting. Cover the work area with an old sheet or paper; I utilized a large canvas drop cloth in my own backyard. Put on gloves and protective goggles. Spray each chair evenly with primer and permit them to dry thoroughly. This primer spray dries fast; the seats should be all set for the next step within 20 minutes.

Sarah Greenman

3. Spray paint the seats. Follow the can’s instructions and spray evenly and from the right distance for the best outcomes. Permit the color coat to dry thoroughly (about an hour).

Sarah Greenman

I placed cardboard beneath the seats because I was painting on a soft grass surface.

Sarah Greenman

4. I love the appearance of high-gloss painted furniture, so I finished the task with a polyurethane topcoat. This sealed the timber and left a clean durable finish that allows me to easily wipe down the seats after mealtimes.

5. Permit the seats to dry thoroughly in the open air before bringing them indoors. I let mine dry immediately, but four to five hours should be sufficient time.

Sarah Greenman

Staining and Re-covering that the Seat Cushions

I like the look of script, so I chose this typographic cloth from Ikea. I coated five cushions using less than 3 yards of cloth. The cloth was too white for my own dining area, so I shifted the shade with a simple tea stain.

Sarah Greenman

1. Staining a bright white cloth with tea is a terrific way to give your upholstery a classic appearance. While the seats are drying, fill a bucket with warm water and steep 10 or more tea bags. Plunge the cloth into the tea and let it soak for 2 hours or longer. Stir it sometimes. The longer you let it steep, the darker the stain is going to be.

Sarah Greenman

2. Once the cloth has the desired pigmentation, then wring out the water and hang the cloth to dry or toss it in the dryer on medium until it’s thoroughly dry.

Sarah Greenman

3. Place the pillow on the cloth and cut it with scissors, leaving spacearound the edges to totally cover your cushions, such as the sides and a few inches of overlap underneath. I left 5 to 6 inches of extra fabric around the edges of the cushion.

Sarah Greenman

4. Fold the edges of the cloth, tucking under the rough edges. This will help keep your cloth from fraying and coming loose with time.

Hint: If your fabric has a design with a clear top and bottom, such as this script, be certain the layout is lined up properly. In this case, I placed the script to be readable when you’re confronting the chair.

Sarah Greenman

5. Using a staple gun, secure the border of the cloth to the bottom of the chair. I had the most success when I began with front lip of the chair. When the front is secure, pull the cloth taut across the top of the chair and secure the rear lip of the pillow, leaving the sides and corners free.

When managing the corners, I just pintucked the cloth and used a few extra staples to secure the overlapped areas. Staple the surfaces of the pillow smooth and last the cloth with your hand as you complete the job. Be sure the top of the pillow is smooth.

Sarah Greenman

6. Once the chair frames are completely dry, reattach the newly covered cushions using a drill or screwdriver.

Before Photo

Sarah Greenman

Here’s a look at the seats before and after.

Sarah Greenman

My refreshed dining place now appears prepared to host a tea party. Treating the white upholstery using a tea stain brought it more in accord with the off-white area rug and pendant lighting above the table.

Your turn: Share your dining chair makeover below!

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Sharp angled roof lines that incline to the center create a butterfly roof. Popular after the nuclear age, this midcentury roof layout was a response to the boxy brick facades of the postwar norm. The crevice in the middle of the sloping roof was able to collect water in drought-affected locations, and the sharp angles let for excellent vaulted ceilings.

Gardner Architects LLC

This butterfly roof has equal-length sides and acts as an eave for the coated deck below.

Four Corners Construction, L.P.

The downspout of the butterfly roof shows where the water tends to run off, directly at the crevice where the two slopes meet.

Michael Tauber Architecture

This is an illustration of a butterfly roof. The lines of the structure are long and low, feature of contemporary design.

Neiman Taber Architects

Tongue and groove panels line the eaves of the contemporary butterfly roof.

Gaulhofer Windows

Though this looks like a butterfly roof, it’s really comprised of 2 skillion roofs, which both slant inward. The advantage of this is the vertical distance between allows for a wonderful clerestory window.

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A barge board covers the ends of rafters at the gable end of a roof just like a fascia board, but it’s carved and decorative. They’re also called fly gable rafters or rafters.

Landmark Services Inc

The barge board on this dormer has been trimmed with gentle curves.

Landmark Services Inc

Every gable end of the roof and its dormers has a barge board.

Warwick Avenue

Barge board is purely decorative, following the components are complete added.

YuillBuilt

Decorative bargeboards are found on English Tudor, Gothic and Queen Anne style homes, giving a fairytale or gingerbread house quality to the facade.

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The typical American home tends to lack signifigant architectural detail. Long, straight rooms of white on white with small molding and builder-grade doors may get old. One of the simplest ways to add a punch would be to add a fire feature. The visual impact of a fireplace may enliven a space, and the heat of the fires can create any space comfy.

Check out these fire attributes included in specific ways — you could just be prompted to bring several fires for your next home improvement project.

California Home + Design

A fireplace may liven up an easy white space. Instead of going with a conventional arrangement, try an asymmetrical one. A thick black mantel provides the feature dimension.

Bill Fry Construction – Wm. H. Fry Const. Co..

White isn’t your style? Try out this arrangement with a rustic stone surround and organic wood mantel. It works flawlessly with the angled line of this ceiling.

Samuel H. Williamson Associates

A fireplace is not simply a boon to indoor spaces; it may liven up an exterior as well. This chimney provides a basic ranch shape more character and lends a cottage feel.

Frederick + Frederick Architects

Perhaps you don’t need a fireplace inside, however an outdoor fireplace will be perfect. Adding a fireplace instantly creates an outdoor space and may expand your living room.

Barbara

If you don’t have a fireplace, you may add a hint of a hearth with a mantelpiece.

Mark English Architects, AIA

Fire has a home in this kitchen via a wood-burning pizza oven. Can there be anything more reassuring than a pepperoni pie baking over open coals?

hatch + ulland owen architects

If a pizza oven is too large of a commitment for you, maybe a conventional fireplace is the best addition to your kitchen and dining room. This fireplace, set behind the dining table, adds interest to the back wall and a homey glow to winter nights.

Built Incorporated

If your appearance is more contemporary, a sleek concrete encircle might be the way to go. This appearance is anything but ordinary.

Alpha Design Group

Here is another surround set to a wall. A gas fireplace lessens the maintenance and cleanup of a conventional fireplace.

However you choose to design the space, a tiny fire or the suggestion of it may incorporate a warm, reassuring touch to your home.

Read thousands of fireplace designs

More:
16 Stunningly Beautiful Fireplaces
The Ideal Built-Ins For Your Fireplace
Painted Fireplace Mantels Add Pizzazz

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